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Check Point VPN-1 [EOL] vs SonicWall NSa comparison

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
581
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Check Point VPN-1 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonicWall NSa
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Ralf Zlabinger - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Informationssicherheit at Bacher Systems EDV GmbH
Very good IPS, anti-malware, and VPN capabilities
This product has now served more than 30 years in the market and has evolved tremendously over the years. Check Point administration and management help you through visibility and performance. Even though its price is high, you have one management platform that has a great user experience and is easy to use. The log viewer and its indexing is especially useful. It can lower your administration time and can also be used with an API. If you want a perfect and centralized solution that gives you fast access to all of your network areas, this is the right product. The new AI functions will speed up the administration even more.
Mahendra Basera - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr.Engineer at Akara Capital Advisor Pvt. Ltd.
Automated breach prevention has protected critical workloads and keeps external attacks blocked
I am familiar with SonicWall TZ. I have done a POC of TZ but I have not worked extensively with it. I have worked with the 2600 firewall and then the 3600. These are the models which we have worked with.SonicWall NSa was an on-premises solution. The two firewalls which were in production, in the data center and on the LAN side, were both on-premises solutions. We had a pre-decided budget under which we would purchase the firewall. All parameters including security, high availability, and budget concerns were covered with SonicWall NSa being implemented at that time. SonicWall NSa is a user-friendly product that is easy to configure, and it is easy for network personnel and firewall administrators to work with. Even the L1 team captured and learned this firewall effectively, helping us resolve all parameters related to high availability firewalls within budget-friendly costs. I rate this review a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is easy to use and update the software version. It is also useful for integration with other Fortinet products, because my office and company use Fortinet solutions."
"I would rate the scalability of this product a nine out of ten because it is highly scalable. We have not had problems with customers in terms of scalability."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many functions, and it is one of the best next-generation firewalls with an affordable cost than other vendors."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"FortiAnalyzer's capability to provide detailed reporting based on various criteria is highly valuable."
"The technical support is great."
"Its most outstanding feature is content filtering."
"Technical support has been good."
"The product offers fairly good centralized administration and monitoring with decent capabilities that allow the administrator to have relevent control over devices."
"VPN clients are easy to use and deploy."
"SonicWall NSa's most valuable features are the ease of configuration and the GUI."
"The tool's most valuable feature is application security. I am satisfied with its threat-prevention capabilities and have no issues with its incident response rate. We have no issues with its integration."
"The filtering is excellent."
"Our old firewall was running as HA (High Availability) on two different but identical rack mounted servers. Moving to SonicWall allowed the company to move to one unit, yet accommodate more connections because it had sixteen ports and handled fail-over better than the old firewall solution."
"It is able to fulfill my requirements. It protects our network environment. It has control over IPS, signatures, and it can also manage bandwidth and mapping. It is also stable and has good support."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"We can do the hosting and security all under one box. The UTM is a good feature."
"We use SonicWall NSa for authenticating MAC (media access control) ID from the PC."
 

Cons

"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"Areas that have room for improvement in Fortinet FortiGate include support and GUI enhancement."
"More advanced AI capabilities would be beneficial in future updates."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"They should provide us with a CSV number for patch updates. It will help us block specific signatures as well."
"I find the management console not very straightforward, so that's an area where Fortinet FortiGate can improve. They should simplify it and make it more user-friendly."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"Every time we made a change, the policy took about three minutes to apply, and obviously, when there were emergency changes or changes that we needed that were escalated, they were not modified very, very quickly."
"Pricing is sometimes challenging, although it brings a lot of features."
"It should have excellent integration with the other security tools."
"The reporting from the file or reporting from mobile access needs improvement. The solution, in general, could use better reporting tools."
"Overall, Im satisfied with SonicWall NSa, but it would be better if they could add a small terminal to each device. This would help me deal with certain issues by running a small bot onto any PC."
"At those times, the CPU spikes considerably, and due to that, the firewall response becomes slow."
"The ongoing service fees are high."
"We have security as a service, and they make recommendations about adding to the denylist and other things. That part could be more accessible and more user-friendly. I'd like to see SonicWall add a user-friendly interface where our internal team can drag and drop everything."
"We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us."
"We still get phishing emails that manage to come through from time to time."
"It would be useful to have an application firewall that prevents the outside world from seeing your private IPs. You don't need to publicize your private IPs to the outside world, and you can create a barrier, like a proxy server."
"Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."
"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."
"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."
"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."
"There is a subscription-based model to use Fortinet FortiGate. We pay annually for the solution along with the support. If you want to have all the updates, and security patches you will need to renew your support."
"The price is fair compared to the other competitors."
"There is no challenge in Fortinet FortiGate pricing."
"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten"
Information not available
"It would be better if it has a better price, but its price is okay considering the benefits that you receive."
"The price is reasonable."
"The price is high. I would rate it four to five out of ten."
"SonicWall is a one-time purchase and there is no renewal license."
"You need their analyzer to properly generate reports. This is an expensive, licensed feature, with a complex application or appliance back-end."
"The return on investment is very good."
"We paid about 10,000 in our currency for one packet of SonicWall NSa."
"Compared to Fortinet and Cisco, SonicWall NSa is a cheaper solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise189
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about SonicWall NSa?
The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSa?
I am overall satisfied with everything, including the price.
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSa?
The CPU configuration for SonicWall NSa, based on my experience, is average. It should be increased somewhat because ...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
NSA 250M, NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, Dell SonicWALL NSA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
SF Police Credit Union, Carmel Partners, S_ren Rothe
Orange County Rescue Mission, First Source, Michaels & Taylor, Green Clinic Health System, Aspire Chiltern Skills and Enterprise Centre, UnitedStack, Faith Lutheran College Redlands, Celtic Manor Resort, Star Kay White, Air Works, Unimat Life, NHS Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS), Hutt City Council, Mato Grosso do Sul, Nspyre
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Sophos and others in Firewalls. Updated: January 2026.
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